Exit-Poll Secrecy Measures : Aim to Plug Leaks to Blogs

[jefferson_dem]

Exit-Poll Secrecy Measures
Aim to Plug Leaks to Blogs
By AMY SCHATZ
November 7, 2006; Page B1

Two-by-two, polling specialists from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and the Associated Press will go into rooms in New York and Washington shortly before noon Tuesday. Their cellphones and BlackBerrys will be confiscated; proctors will monitor the doors; and for the next five hours, these experts will pore over exit-poll data from across the country.

If all goes well, only when they emerge from their cloisters will the legions of ravenous political bloggers have any chance of getting their hands on the earliest indication of which party will end up controlling Congress.

"The demand for info is intense, and if the safeguards aren't steel doors bolting people inside a room, it will get out," says Marc Ambinder, associate editor of National Journal's Hotline OnCall. "The insatiable appetite for this info will overwhelm the ability to keep it secret."

The extraordinary security is a result of mix-ups that prompted grumbling about the accuracy of exit polls after the 2004 presidential election: Bloggers posted data from early exit polls, incorrectly calling some states for Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry and indicating that he would unseat President Bush.

<SNIP>

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116287010711115239-EQOUoKqbsFDn784dPUru4ZeHreE_20071106.html?mod=blogs

[NOLADEM]

1. So, they are trying to control access to the exit polls to make stealing it easier

[Ian David]

2. They want to make sure their numbers all agree... SO THEY CAN STEAL IT! n/t

[LA lady]

3. Told to lie

A radio announcement went out here that told everyone to never tell exit pollers the truth, to screw with their numbers.

[98geoduck]

4. Evidently the brown shirts /stalinists can't even stay on the same page with all of their spin.

Doesn't surprise me.

[RussBLib]

5. I thought that Exit Polls were abandoned after 2004

Someone enlighten me, please.

[Dover]

6. The 2000 Exit Polling/media announcements had nothing to do with bloggers

and leaks, as far as I remember. And that's when these troublesome "inconsistencies" between exit polls and "results" seemed to originate. Now that they've got that little media group under control they now need to make sure there are no independent witnesses.

They are getting more and more secretive....and trying to sell it once again as a "security measure".

[melm00se]

7. point of fact

exit polls are not run, tablulated or disseminated by the government...it is handled by National Election Pool (CNN, Fox and AP...i think?)

the NEP sells the data they generate so they are just trying to protect the integrity of their product (which has a very short and limited shelf life)

[Dover]

8. Can the word "integrity" be spoken in the same sentence with CNN, FOX etc.?

Puhleeeeeze!

[melm00se]

9. i look at exit polls

as early indicators...but by no means sufficiently accurate to base the election outcome upon them 100% of the time.

if they were so accurate why even bother continuing to hold the election after a sufficient number of the population has voted?

To quote Chris Bermam "...and THAT's why they play the game!"

[Dover]

10. Ah yes...all of sudden paper ballots and exit polls are unreliable...

even if history doesn't bear that out. But hey, raise that doubt...that hanging chad... and people will just go along.

NOTHING is 100%, but historically the averages are very high for accuracy.

[suston96]

12. Orange revolution....

Exit polls are relied on when the people sense that the announced results of an election do not conform with the general consensus as to how the election should have resulted.

In the Ukraine, the people took to the streets in 2004 and stayed there until a new election was declared by their parliament. (Google orange revolution).

Exit polls have always been close to accurate. Most voters proudly assert how they voted. Bullshitting an exit poller is completely stupid. Especially if the major intent of the exit polling is to validate the honesty of the election process.

[Dover]

16. I really like orange and would like to see a lot more people wear it.

But I think this country is colorblind.

[Tempest]

13. For more than 50 years exit polls were uncannily accurate

Then came the electronic voting machines and all of a sudden exit polls are "by no means sufficiently accurate".

What a crock of shit.

[Nederland]

15. Almost true

Raw exit polls, like those that got released early in 2004, have never been accurate. It's only after you weight the data that you can get accurate results out of exit polls. The reality is that until 2004, nobody outside of the actual polling firms ever saw or talked about the raw data. Bloggers changed all that...

[gratuitous]

11. More security for exit poll data than for nuclear secrets

Odd little society the Republicans have built here . . .

[Dover]

14. Just click your heals together and repeat..."there's no place like home"

Time to pull back the curtain, throw water on the witch and retrain the flying monkeys.

[98geoduck]

17. NICE!

:)

[mhatrw]

23. Exactly. n/t

[KansDem]

18. So who made these bozos the "guardians of democracy?"

Give me a f**king break! All we've seen these past 6-8 years has been a constant stream of propaganda by these "journalists" supporting the Bushistas. Now we're suppose to believe these very same propagandists are going to save us from "legions of ravenous political bloggers?"

The extraordinary security is a result of mix-ups that prompted grumbling about the accuracy of exit polls after the 2004 presidential election: Bloggers posted data from early exit polls, incorrectly calling some states for Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry and indicating that he would unseat President Bush.

Give me the "legions" anytime. They were correct about 2004...

[Dover]

19. This is even more ridiculous. They originally blamed the 2004 exit poll problem

on the pollers for lack of training and they claimed there were more Kerry voters interviewed. Purportedly the bloggers released the info before CNN and others had a chance to 'correct it'. Keep in mind that the polling company and this media consortium is brand new, created after the 2000 voting debacle/exit poll 'problems'.

And according to this CNN article (written in Jan. 2005) this 'problem' has existed since 1988.

The new report shows that exit polls overstated Kerry's support in 26 states, while estimates overstated Bush's support in four states. The problem is not new -- in every presidential election since 1988, exit polls have overstated support for Democrats nationally -- but the discrepancy in 2004 was more pronounced than in previous years.

The report identified several factors that may have contributed to the discrepancy, including:


* Distance restrictions from polling places imposed upon the interviewers by election officials at the state and local level.


* Weather conditions, which lowered completion rates at certain polling locations.


* Multiple precincts voting at the same location as the precinct in the exit poll sample.


* Interviewer characteristics, such as age, which were more often related to the errors last year than in past elections.

The pollsters said they plan to further investigate the recruiting and training procedures, the interviewing rate calculations, the length and design of the questionnaire, as well as characteristics of both the interviewers and the precincts chosen to be surveyed.

"Even with these improvements, differences in response rates between Democratic and Republican voters may still occur in future elections," the report reads. "However, we believe that these steps will help to minimize the discrepancies."

In addition to the information included in this report, exit poll data from this election are being archived at the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut and at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and will be available there for review and further analysis. A description of the methodology of the exit polls is posted at www.exit-poll.net.

From 1990 to 2002, exit polls were conducted by Voter News Service (VNS), whose exit polls in 2000 led to the networks' decisions to declare Al Gore the winner in Florida. In 2002, VNS was unable to deliver any exit poll data to the networks, resulting in the decision to disband it.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/19/exit.polls/index.html



_____________________________________________________________________________________________


http://www.exit-poll.net/election-night/MethodsStatementStateGeneric.pdf

METHODS STATEMENT
NATIONAL ELECTION POOL EXIT POLLS
November 2, 2004
STATE
Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International conducted exit polls in each state and
nationally for the National Election Pool (ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC). The polls should
be referred to as a National Election Pool (or NEP) Exit Poll, conducted by Edison/Mitofsky.
All questionnaires were prepared by NEP.
The state exit poll was conducted at a sample of polling places among Election Day voters.
In addition, absentee and/or early voters were interviewed in a pre-election telephone polls in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina,
Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Washington State. All samples were RDD selections except for
Oregon which used a dual frame RDD/RBS sample. Absentee or early voters were asked the
same questions asked of voters at the polling place on Election Day. Results from the phone poll
were combined with results from voters interviewed at the polling places. The combination
reflects approximately the correct proportion of absentee/early voters and Election Day voters.
The polling places are a stratified probability sample of a state. Within each polling place an
interviewer approached every nth voter as he or she exited the polling place. Approximately 100
voters completed a questionnaire at each polling place. The exact number depends on voter
turnout and their cooperation.
For the tabulations used to analyze an election, respondents are weighted based upon three
factors. They are: (1) the probability of selection of the precinct and the respondent within the
precinct; (2) a non-response adjustment based upon completion rates by age, race and gender; (3)
by the size and distribution of the best estimate of the vote within geographic regions of a state.
The third step produces consistent estimates at the time of the tabulation whether from the
tabulations or the estimating models used to make projections of the election. At other times the
projection models may differ somewhat from the tabulations.
All samples are approximations. A measure of the approximation is called the sampling error.
Sampling error is affected by the design of the sample, the characteristic being measured and the
number of people who have the characteristic. If a characteristic is found in roughly the same
proportions in all precincts the sampling error will be lower. If the characteristic is concentrated
in a few precincts the sampling error will be larger. Gender would be a good example of a
characteristic with a lower sampling error. Characteristics for minority racial groups will have
larger sampling errors.
The table below lists typical sampling errors for given size subgroups for a 95% confidence
interval. The values in the table should be added and subtracted from the characteristic’s
percentage in order to construct an interval. 95% of the intervals created this way will contain the
value that would be obtained if all voters were interviewed using the same procedures. Other
non-sampling factors, including nonresponse, are likely to increase the total error.
%Error Due to Sampling (+/-) for 95% Confidence Interval
Number of Voters in Base of Percentage
% Voters with
Characteristic
100
101-200
201-500
501-950
951-2350
2351-5250
5% or 95% 6 5 3 2 2 1
15% or 85% 11 7 5 4 3 2
25% or 75% 13 9 6 5 3 2
50% 15 10 7 5 4 3
STATE
# of polling
locations
Total # of
interviews
# of Election
Day
interviews
# of
absentee
voter
telephone
interviews
AL 14 740 740
AK 29 1194 1194
AZ 35 1881 1500 381
AR 35 1483 1483
CA 35 2015 1541 474
CO 40 2501 2024 477
CT 15 879 879
DE 15 778 778
DC 15 796 796
FL 55 2760 2384 376
GA 35 1650 1650
HI 15 633 633
ID 15 804 804
IL 30 1443 1443
IN 25 946 946
IA 45 2491 2146 345
KS 15 671 671
KY 20 1075 1075
LA 39 1694 1694
ME 35 1992 1992
MD 20 1071 1071
MA 15 893 893
MI 50 2522 2198 324
MN 45 2192 2192
MS 15 806 806
MO 50 2276 2276
MT 15 664 664
NE 15 788 788
NV 39 2181 1716 465
NH 40 1896 1896
NJ 30 1524 1524
NM 35 1980 1609 371
NY 30 1476 1476
NC 40 2099 1800 299
ND 15 694 694
OH 49 2042 2042
OK 30 1604 1604
OR N.A. 951 N.A. 951
PA 50 2123 2123
RI 15 813 813
SC 34 1803 1803
SD 38 1567 1567
TN 25 1685 1352 333
TX 20 1583 1237 346
UT 15 828 828
VT 15 709 709
VA 25 1432 1432
WA 34 2063 1387 676
WV 43 1751 1751
WI 45 2340 2340
WY 15 767 767
NEP Exit Poll Completion Rates - 2004
The following table contains the respondent completion rates for all of the exit polls conducted
by the NEP in 2004 and by VNS in 2000.
This overall completion rate is computed by averaging the completion rates in each precinct
weighted by the exit poll sample weight. The precinct completion rate is equal to the number
completed questionnaires divided by the number of attempts (completed questionnaires + total
refusals and misses).
For comparison purposes we have recalculated the VNS completion rates from 2000 using this
formula. The completion rate for the National Sample Precincts is the weighted average
completion rate for the 250 precincts used in the national sample. The completion rate for All
Precincts is the average completion rate for all 1,469 precincts used in all of the state samples.
The 2004 national completion rate decreased by one half of one percent since 2000. The
completion rates increased in 23 states and decreased in 27 states.
Completion Rate Computed by
Averaging Precinct Rates:
State 2004 2000
All Precincts 53.2 53.7
National Sample Precincts 52.8 NA
Alabama 58.3 63.9
Alaska 53.2 61.9
Arizona 57.3 55.3
Arkansas 60.2 61.2
California 50.5 48.2
Colorado 55.5 59.1
Connecticut 51.0 54.9
D.C. 53.5 46.8
Delaware 57.5 52.0
Florida 49.0 54.6
Georgia 63.9 49.9
Hawaii 53.4 54.8
Idaho 63.2 60.9
Illinois 51.9 45.8
Indiana 38.6 53.1
Iowa 52.6 60.3
Kansas 64.5 64.2
Kentucky 52.6 53.8
Louisiana 47.8 59.1
Maine 61.3 66.0
Maryland 59.4 64.9
Massachusetts 56.5 54.0
Michigan 50.2 48.4
Minnesota 45.3 46.9
Mississippi 49.6 69.7
Missouri 47.0 38.1
Montana 63.0 55.9
Nebraska 66.5 50.7
Nevada 49.1 50.0
New Hampshire 44.0 54.8
New Jersey 59.7 51.8
New Mexico 56.9 57.5
New York 57.9 53.9
North Carolina 52.6 56.2
North Dakota 63.0 68.5
Ohio 44.1 44.9
Oklahoma 53.2 64.8
Pennsylvania 46.8 48.5
Rhode Island 44.2 42.7
South Carolina 59.4 60.3
South Dakota 42.7 34.4
Tennessee 66.7 64.5
Texas 58.3 61.1
Utah 59.6 57.6
Vermont 53.1 60.3
Virginia 56.4 48.8
Washington 53.8 50.4
West Virginia 48.7 55.8
Wisconsin 55.3 51.7
Wyoming 66.0 60.1

[ProgressiveEconomist]

20. k&r

[ProgressiveEconomist]

21. Here's a :LINK to the National Election Pool homepage:

http://www.exit-poll.net/

[nashville_brook]

22. delete

[humbled_opinion]

24. Who exactly put the media in charge...

The most distrustful faux stations of all time...

[ProgressiveEconomist]

25. CNN has posted FULL tabulations of exit poll results, by state

For Virginia, see http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006//pages/results/states/VA/S/01/epolls.0.html .

For other states, substitute a two-letter postal code for VA in the URL above, or click on the rightmost box in the lower table at http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006//pages/results/senate .